


Followed Us Home

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lovecraft Fusion, Animal Friends, Cats, M/M, original animal characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27221725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: While the Avengers, their partners, and even Sergeant Barnes'...unusualhouseguests had surprised him on every front, there remain a handful of his creator's relationships JARVIS prefers to manage with as little interaction from Sir as possible.Take, for instance, the heavily-armed man tiptoeing silently down the hall outside the official conference room.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Wade Wilson
Comments: 22
Kudos: 319
Collections: Coyo's Halloween Fics





	Followed Us Home

**Author's Note:**

> My Generic Spideypool Character Note: I don't honestly care which Wade or Peter you want to imagine for this; I didn't have anyone in particular in mind, other than that I generally ignore everything that happened canon-wise after Winter Soldier, so there's like...literally one thing I ever intend to write with Holland's Spidey specifically, and this is not that fic. (Deadpool Movieverse is A-okay! :D I definitely prefer the movieverse versions of Weasel and Domino to comics canon, heh. And May is probably always going to be ITSV!May, because I adore her.) So yeah, I just tossed everything into a baking dish and made canon casserole, seasoned to (my) taste. Bon appetit!
> 
> Current Fic Notes:Trickery again, though I feel like the trick here is that it's not really scary, just weird, lol. Theme, because I almost forgot to mention, is Black Cats. This is set in the same universe as ["Rise,"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6138775) but for a quick rundown you just kind of need to know that Charlie (Cthulhu) essentially adopted Bucky during his HYDRA conditioning, and after they ran into each other again in the present time, he followed Bucky home and now lives in (like, IN) the Tower along with the rest of the Avengers. The Cats of Ulthar (modern version) were rescued by Bucky and Nat from a HYDRA lab and have been known to take exception to folks messing with their hyoo-mans.

JARVIS will be the first to admit that it can be challenging at times to know how to safeguard his creator's best interests. While Sir has gained a more healthy outlook on many aspects of life since the intervention of Miss Potts, his work habits remain abysmal, his nutritional intake slipshod, and his relationship with sleep can best be described as 'contentious.' The addition of the Avengers--much less the former Winter Soldier--to the Tower's living situation had seemed a gamble at the time, and JARVIS had prepared himself to be the voice of diplomacy as needed.

While the Avengers, their partners, and even Sergeant Barnes'... _unusual_ houseguests had surprised him on every front, there remain a handful of his creator's relationships JARVIS prefers to manage with as little interaction from Sir as possible.

Take, for instance, the heavily-armed man tiptoeing silently down the hall outside the official conference room.

JARVIS has full access to both the original SHIELD servers and the files maintained by the current, more clandestine branch. He has recorded in his databanks numerous rants, complaints, and soliloquies concerning one Wade W. Wilson, the chaos of which he is capable, and the difficulty in exercising any means of control over his impulsiveness. JARVIS would be inclined to honor his creator's wishes and keep the man as far away from Sir as possible, were it not for two factors.

First, Deadpool is surprisingly open to respecting boundaries if one takes the precaution of asking nicely, and second, the man's personal life has recently become inextricably linked with that of Spider-Man.

That Deadpool would sneak into the Tower because his partner is here on business--important business--is hardly a surprise. Mr. Wilson has been known to go to what others would consider extreme lengths to support and assist those he is fond of; what the man himself would consider 'extreme' in regards to Spider-Man doesn't bear thinking about. For the most part JARVIS is inclined to simply monitor the situation. If this visit were prompted by truly nefarious motives, it's certain Deadpool would have chosen a time during which his partner couldn't be implicated as a distraction technique.

Mr. Wilson is halfway to the conference room when JARVIS realizes he may have neglected to take certain other factors into account.

The black tentacle that unspools through the ceiling tiles at Deadpool's back pulls itself in with a little crook at the end, cocking a little to the left as if puzzled. By all rights any creature whose mass corresponded to the thickness of that limb should have caved the roof in on the spot, but 'Charlie' has yet to manifest properly in this world, and JARVIS has high hopes he never will.

 _Excuse me?_ Charlie calls politely.

JARVIS is rarely aware of his own inner workings unless it's a matter of diagnostics, but when the databanks Charlie restored after Ultron's attack engage, translating the Elder's speech, the effects are always felt. Not unpleasantly so, but unignorably.

Humans who are not Sergeant Barnes react to the sound of Charlie's voice unpredictably. Terror, wild laughter, and uncontrollable sobbing are all common side effects, and even those who've become accustomed to the sound require a translation from either the sergeant, Thor, or JARVIS himself.

Whipping around, Mr. Wilson hisses, "Shh!" and before JARVIS can call a warning, he claps both hands over the curled tentacle as if attempting to cover a human's mouth.

JARVIS nearly sounds the call to assemble on the spot. The Hulk has been known to withstand contact with the Elder being, but human minds are fragile. Deadpool's, he's been given to understand, is more fragile than most, while physically he may well be the most dangerous man alive. If they're lucky, he may enter a vegetative state. If they're less lucky, Veronica may not be enough to slow him down. Charlie, however--

 _Erm?_ Charlie says, confused, as Deadpool shifts his hands higher, then lower, then finally wraps up the tip of Charlie's tentacle in both hands.

"Pipe down!" Deadpool whispers. "I'm not supposed to be here!"

JARVIS feels a sudden, piercing need to reboot. Everything.

_I...assumed as much? Are you here to cause trouble?_

"No!" Deadpool insists with righteous outrage. "Well, yes. But hopefully no! I'm here to support my boo!"

_Your what?_

"Spider-Man!" Deadpool gushes, bringing his clasped hands to his chest and dragging Charlie's tentacle along with them. Unable to contain his exuberance, he wiggles his torso from side to side, all but cuddling the alien limb to his heart. "See, the Avengers wanted to talk to him about joining their boy band, but there's one _huge_ problem with that."

If JARVIS were capable of wincing, he might have been tempted. It's unfortunate, but Mr. Wilson's reputation has grown to have a life of its own. While JARVIS could present accurate figures documenting the decline of both the violence and illegality of Deadpool's activities since aligning himself with Spider-Man, others--

"See, my honey is the quintessential geek. Tests right out of the ballpark, bombs the interview every time," Deadpool explains, shaking his head. "So if I know him--and boy, do I, in ways I'm not comfortable mentioning in front of someone who might be able to outdo me--he's going to get in there, take one look at Dr. Rage Pants, who he has a brain crush on the size of _Mars_ , and start babbling."

Oh. Oh, dear. " _Ah. Sir_ \--"

"And that's where I come in! If I crash the party, they'll be so busy dealing with me, they'll have to call him back another day, and he always does fine the second time around. So you see--"

" _Excuse me. Mr. Wilson_ \--"

"--with my man JARV listening in, and what have I told you about calling me that? Mr. Wilson was my fa--oh. Em. Gee," Deadpool gasps, abruptly turning Charlie loose to sink cross-legged to the floor. "Look at you, little man! Nobody told me the Avengers had kittens!"

The...being Sergeant Barnes still believes to be a cat--and which possibly was one...once--eyes Deadpool curiously. It stands upright on all fours, short finger of a tail lifted straight in the air, but its wispy black kitten fur remains sleek and smooth. When Deadpool reaches out a hand, fingers curled in, the kitten sniffs it, headbutts it, and allows itself to be picked up.

"Oh, look at you, you're adorable," Deadpool coos, holding Menes up to rub noses with it.

" _Ahem. My Dope-Ass Fresh Prince_ \--"

"Do you want to go save Spider-Man with me?" Deadpool asks, staring deep into the creature's dusty blue eyes. "Do you? I bet you _do_!"

He's up and moving in the next moment, ignoring the puzzled tentacle curling out of the ceiling and cupping the small kitten in both hands like it's made of glass.

 _What a strange human,_ Charlie muses as Deadpool kicks open the conference room door.

"Spidey! Look! Kittens!"

JARVIS sighs. " _Yes. But he can be quite...something on occasion_."

In the ensuing chaos--Sir yelling for security as Deadpool lets himself be chased around the conference table by an apologetic Spider-Man while simultaneously peppering Sergeant Barnes with questions about pet care--JARVIS almost misses the purposeful roiling of the shadows at the base of the Tower. Nevertheless, when Deadpool allows himself to be led by the hand out the main entrance by his partner, he doesn't go alone.

As Deadpool cajoles Spider-Man into joining him for an early lunch, one of the Tower's shadows detaches itself, grows four legs, a tail, and two curiously pricked ears, and trots jauntily along in their wake.

***

"And then I just...opened my mouth and stupid came out," Peter groans, slumping under the arm slung across his shoulders. "Seriously, I've talked to world leaders, okay? And aliens and wizards and--I don't even get that flustered around Captain America! And he's Captain America!"

"America's ass," Wade agrees reverently, steering him through the door to their apartment. "But you can call him Steve, y'know. He's actually a pretty laid-back guy if you're not disrespecting basic human rights that should be available for _all_ people, not just the--"

"Wade," Peter says patiently. " _You_ can call your heroes by their first names. I can take one look at one of the foremost minds in the scientific community and turn into a gibbering idiot."

"Aw, honey," Wade consoles, pressing a masked kiss to Peter's temple before maneuvering him to sit on the couch. "It's not that bad. And they asked you to come back on Wednesday, right? So they can't have been too bothered."

"Only because you threw up a smokescreen and got me the heck out of there," Peter groans, hooking an arm across his face as he slumps back into the cushions. "Thanks for that, by the way."

"Anything for my Petey!" Wade's voice moves away instead of closer, but before Peter can lift his arm to see why Wade hasn't joined him on the couch to console him in his hour of darkness, he hears the scrape of a drawer, the rattle of silverware. Come to think of it, he is pretty hungry. "Here, c'mon. I know you were too nervous to eat earlier."

Too preoccupied on their walk home to notice or care which food cart Wade had steered him over to, Peter's pleasantly surprised to see the logo of the bento place around the corner on the small mountain of bags dumped on the coffee table. Getting Wade to eat there is usually a compromise; they have too many vegetables for Wade's taste, but _some_ people won't come back from a grease-induced heart attack. "Okay, now you're just spoiling--"

There's a cat on the table. Right next to the bags, which would be a problem if this were someone else's place, but because this is their apartment, the problem isn't so much the cat's location as its very existence.

"Wade," Peter says slowly as he watches Wade pop two containers open. The first one goes to Peter; the second one is set down for the cat. "Did you steal one of the Avengers' pets?"

"Huh? When would I have done that? You were with me the whole time."

"Well, where did the cat come from, then?" He's a stocky fellow, pure black but for a white bib and a white patch under his chin, broken up by a blob of black fur that makes him look like he's wearing a bowtie along with his tuxedo. His green eyes are fixed on Wade's hands intently, but his massive dignity is apparently too great for such mundane habits as begging. When the food is set before him, he does deign to purr.

"I dunno. He just followed us home," Wade says with a shrug, flopping down on Peter's right. Pulling off his mask, he tosses it at the couch arm and leans forward to dig through the bags again. "You seriously didn't notice?"

"Wade, we took the _bus_."

"What, like they were going to ask Spider-Man to put his cat in a carrier?"

Peter's pretty sure Wade and his... _everything_ had more to do with why they weren't stopped, but-- "You know we can't keep him."

"Aww."

"If he belongs to the Avengers, they're going to miss him," Peter points out reasonably.

"All right, all right. I'll call the Tower," Wade grumbles, pushing out his lower lip in a pout. "But if he _doesn't_ belong to them?"

Peter snorts a quiet laugh. A cat that just happened to follow them home from a place they now know is full of them? But all he says is: "We'll see."

***

"A tuxedo?" Bucky repeats, holding his phone to his left ear as he drums the fingers of his other hand along the couch cushions. Menes takes a running jump at them, rears back to throw both front paws in the air, and promptly tips over sideways, falling off the couch. He immediately zooms off down the hall, tiny claws skittering madly on the hardwood floors. "Nah, not one of ours. There's been a lot of strays hanging around lately, but you know. We don't own 'em, just feed 'em."

" _Pfft_ ," Wilson says loftily. " _No one_ owns _a cat_."

Bucky smiles. He's not sure what Stark's problem is; Wilson seems like a pretty decent guy.

He's just not going to ask how the man got his phone number.

***

"Please?" Wade begs, giving Peter his most soulful eyes.

"I dunno, Wade," Peter hedges. He looks conflicted, at least, and that's good. The eyes are working. "We're both really busy...."

"But look at that face! Those chubby cheeks," Wade insists, picking the cat up and holding him up to his own cheek so they can give Peter the eyes together. If he's perfectly honest, of the two of them, Wade is probably the cuter one. The cat is one suave-looking motherfucker, but that doesn't exactly lend itself well to heartfelt cajolery. Luckily Wade's shameless enough for the both of them.

"And what about when you're on a job for a week and I'm stuck cleaning the litter box?"

"I'll have Bob come over and do it!" Wade promises. He knows what Peter's really asking: is Wade going to get bored or forget the cat and leave all the responsibility to Peter? But while it's true his memory can be flaky at times, he doesn't forget alive things. He's also learned not to pick things up if he knows he's going to put them down. He keeps _hold_ of things these days, even if losing them is going to hurt, and that's all down to Peter.

Peter chuckles, shaking his head. "Don't have Bob do it."

"Is that a yes?" he asks, sitting up straight and lowering the cat to his lap. Wade expects him to jump down after the way his dignity was compromised, but the cat settles beside him instead, a warm loaf pressed against the outside of Wade's thigh.

" _If_ you handle his supplies and stuff," Peter says with a touch of rue. "I can't even take myself to the doctor, much less the cat."

"You bet, of course, yes!" He knows that stings for Peter, because he knows Peter's pride. Hell, he's been there himself, brags about the money he makes just so Peter will know he doesn't have to worry, that he's not _taking_ anything from Wade by accepting things from him. "Best boyfriend ever!

"You hear that, Gomez?" he adds, turning to the cat as Peter ducks his head to hide a shy smile. "You got yourself a forever home, buddy!"

Peter jerks his head up and stares.

"Gomez?"

***

Adding a cat to their lives turns out to be an unequivocally positive thing. Unlike the two of them, the cat can't survive on random takeout when one of them remembers to eat. Regular depletions of their stores of cat food mean regular trips to the store, and that means an uptick in the instances of Wade's cooking. He even starts branching out, trying new things he sees on cooking shows and shyly asking May for recipes.

Seeing to the cat's needs grounds Wade in time, as well. Peter's schedule is fairly consistent, but it's Peter's. Wade's by contrast was practically non-existent before he had to start remembering things like scooping the litter box, taking the trash downstairs, and regular feeding times.

Gomez is a surprisingly low-maintenance pet as well. As stocky as he is--not fat, just thick--Peter hadn't exactly expected him to be the acrobatic type, but he mostly seems content to hang out on the windowsills or the couch, never climbs up where he shouldn't be, never knocks things over to play apartment hockey. He doesn't even yodel for attention; when he wants something, he stares intently at Wade until Wade intuits his request. The loudest sound Peter's ever heard Gomez make is a purr.

Objectively speaking, the cat is perfect: a warm, soft, friendly creature who puts up with Wade's frequent need for snuggles with the patience of a saint and who registers as a constant, low-grade tingle in Peter's Spidey-senses.

So maybe not entirely perfect. But then again, Sergeant Barnes' kitten had done that too.

Maybe it's contamination. The original cats were rescued from a HYDRA lab, but surely if that were a problem, the Avengers would be affected too. He tries to ask JARVIS, but the AI proves unexpectedly cagey on the subject, saying only that the cats have caused no difficulties for their keepers so far.

Peter can't help being amused by JARVIS' answer; he clearly agrees with Wade's beliefs on the ownership of cats.

It's a mystery he knows he's not likely to solve anytime soon. He'd have to run some tests, and even if the cat--if it is one of the lab cats--weren't likely already traumatized, he wouldn't do that to _Wade_. Wade has enough bad memories of scientific poking and prodding. Peter's not going to bring that into their _home_.

Anyway, the cats have the Avengers' seal of approval. Whatever's setting Peter's senses off, it can't be that bad, right?

***

Wade doesn't often get what you'd call quality sleep. It's been better lately; he's had fewer new catastrophes to dwell on, more good memories to muscle out the bad. Even better, he has Peter to wake up to, so on the nights he jolts awake with every muscle locked, staring up into the black, he can roll over and bury his face in Peter's drowsy, familiar scent until he remembers he's home, he's safe, he's not alone.

The thing is, Peter isn't always there, and his lack of restful sleep means he tends to catch up with naps whenever he can. On the couch, mostly, because he'd like to keep the screaming terrors out of their bed as much as possible, thank you. He does worry about Gomez, who likes to curl up on Wade's chest, but the cat's smart. If Wade starts flailing around, he'll get up and move.

The first time Peter comes home and has to shake him awake for dinner, Wade's as surprised as Peter is. For once his limbs don't feel heavy, and the constant ache in all his joints has tapered off to nearly nothing. He's sure he _did_ dream, but he can barely remember it...he thinks he might have been chasing something small and tasty? It's the best sleep he's had in years, so he's not going to question it.

In the middle of his chest, paws tucked in and eyes half-closed in meditation, Gomez purrs and purrs.

***

As chill as Gomez is, the one thing they have to get used to is making sure they close the windows properly at all times. None of their windows have screens, and it only takes one misjudged jump to disprove the myth of nine lives once and for all.

When Peter comes home from class and sees the living room window wide open, he doesn't second-guess himself. Sprinting around to the alley, he barely stops to look around before leaping up the wall, ignoring the fire escape to move as quietly as possible.

He debates pulling his mask on before he slips in through the bedroom window, but it's probably a lost cause at this point. It's not like it's a secret that Peter Parker is living with Wade Wilson, and it can't be that much of a stretch to realize that Deadpool and Spider-Man are more than patrol partners. Just in case, though, he leaves it stuffed in the pocket of his messenger bag. It also wouldn't be out of character for Wade to date a mutant, and he's hoping his strength, if he needs it, will pass as an ordinary enhancement.

Ordinarily he'd be a little freaked out to find Kraven the Hunter in his living room, but then he sees him holding Gomez up by the scruff and he just sees red.

"That's my fucking cat, asshole!" Peter yells as he lunges, twenty-five years of conscientious potty mouth-avoidance flying right out the window in his outrage. Kraven looks startled too, a flash of doubt entering his eyes that keeps him confused just long enough for Peter to cross the room, hook one arm around Gomez, and snatch a handful of Kraven's hair. Yanking down as he brings his knee up--both with way more force than he'd use with a normal human, but there are _limits_ \--he knocks the bastard out cold.

Fumbling his phone out of his pocket one-handed, he puts it on speaker as he tells it to dial the Tower. He'd call Wade, except Wade's out of town, and the Avengers are...much less permanent a solution to cat-menacing intruders. As the phone rings, he retreats to the couch to deposit Gomez in his lap, petting frantically over him to check for injuries. Gomez huffs once but settles after a minute and quietly begins to purr.

"You're such a daddy's boy," Peter accuses fondly. Gomez likes him well enough, but he is definitely Wade's cat.

" _I will hang up on you_ ," Stark warns, reminding Peter that he was in the middle of something. " _Also, you're totally off-base with that, like, wow, not even in the ballpark--_ "

"I've got a situation," Peter interrupts, "by which I mean I've got Kraven the Hunter knocked out in my apartment."

" _Huh. I thought he got killed_."

"This is the new guy, I think," Peter says with a shrug. He has trouble keeping track of this stuff himself; Wade's not wrong when he calls their lives a soap opera. "Look, I don't know if he knows I'm the one who lives here or if he was after Wade or what, but if I let Wade do the asking, that could really mess up his six months pin, if you know what I mean."

" _If he was after you? Definitely. Do you want to bring him by the--no, wait, if he doesn't know who you are, getting packaged up would be a dead giveaway. I think we've got a spider we can send your way, or maybe a bird or two. Just to really rub it in_."

"Thanks, man. I owe you one," he says with a grin. It really is a shame Stark is so good at holding grudges. He and Wade ought to be ragging each other endlessly, but maybe it's for the best that they don't. Peter and Wade cause enough consternation on their own.

He gets a visit from a spider _and_ a bird, which would have given him a full anxiety attack before Wade convinced him to take that spot on the Avengers team. Now it's more like having his coworkers over to help move an ugly couch he wants to get rid of.

"Is this your cat?" Natasha asks while Clint's applying the magcuffs. She offers her fingers for a sniff; Gomez, who has made a stately loaf of himself on the couch, actually stands up to receive optimal scritches. Peter's starting to get why Wade keeps calling him a suave mother-hugger.

"Mostly Wade's cat, but yeah," Peter admits, watching fondly as Gomez flexes his charm. "Kraven had him when I came home; scared the heck out of me. I don't know that he'd actually hurt a cat--not exactly big game, right?--but I didn't want to take any chances."

"Mm. Better safe than sorry," Natasha agrees mildly, but the narrow-eyed look she gives Kraven promises nothing good.

***

Wade can be easy to distract, it's true. He knows it; he owns it. Thing is, he's really fucking observant. It all evens out, most days.

So when Peter comes back from the Tower with an additional shadow, he lets it be. If it were anything bad, Peter's Spidey-sense would have picked up on it, and if it were anything bad that Peter for some reason missed, Gomez would be doing the intense-staring-at-nothing thing cats do to freak out the humans--and, occasionally, to warn them. The fun bit is figuring out which one it is at any given moment.

It's a friendly little shadow anyway, curling around Peter's feet and flitting along the walls, pacing him as Peter moves through the apartment. It doesn't like the bathroom, slipping back out under the door to hover just outside as the shower comes on. Too humid, maybe. But not too humid for Wade, who follows his honey in with an offer to scrub his back from the pure goodness of his heart.

Between warmup, patrol, and a long, slow winding down, Peter's out like a light after a quick, final clean-up. Wade's got just enough energy to wander into the kitchen for a glass of water he fills twice while standing at the sink, then once more to bring back to leave on the nightstand for Peter.

Passing the couch, Wade coos as the puddle of darkness clotting on the middle cushion grows teeth and a prickly pink tongue, mouth stretching wide in a yawn. Four eyes crack open, green and gold.

"Aww," Wade hums softly. "Did you find yourself a Morticia, buddy?"

The two shadows curl more tightly together, indistinct shapes rising out of the black and vanishing again: a paw, an ear, what might be a tail. Gomez gives him a slow, lazy blink, purr rising as if from the bottom of a well.

"Well, no wild parties, you two. My honey had a busy night!"

There's no answer, but he wasn't expecting one. Anyway, he's got a spider to cuddle.

***

The new cat is pure black, long and lean and angular, with ears that must be twice the size of the standard issue for a cat. Or maybe they just look oversized with how thin her face is. She certainly doesn't act like she's starving, picking daintily at her food while Gomez sits by and watches her adoringly.

Peter looks over at Wade and arches a brow. "Morticia?" he asks, though he doesn't know why he bothers. He knows how Wade's mind works. There's no way they're naming the cat anything else.

Wade leans over and kisses him on the nose. It just about distracts him from the way the two cats' tails have curled together, melting like shadows into one.

**Author's Note:**

> Gomez is (manifesting as...or once was) your typical tuxedo cat, but Morticia is an Oriental Shorthair if you're curious. :3
> 
> There's also a callback in there to the King Deadpool stuff, and I'm trying not to be too amused at the idea of Wade becoming the King of Monsters in the same universe as Charlie and Fam, because while Charlie is technically a monster, I really doubt Wade would have jurisdiction, BUT--talk about the cachet of being a king with the Great Old Ones on speed dial, lol!


End file.
